so you don’t cross the “Red Line”. The activities of Nigerians on the social
media are now being monitored for hate speech, anti-government and anti-security
information.
TV that the action became necessary in the light of troubling activities and
misinformation capable of jeopardizing the unity of the country.
The military’s confirmation come less than 48 hours
after President Muhammadu Buhari said in his national broadcast that some of the
discussion on social media in his absence crossed the line and left him
distressed.
For Major General Enenche, the
social media has always been a challenge all over the world and for the
military, it is no different.
“It is a double-edged sword and we are also
having a bit of it,” he said when he appeared on Channels Television’s News At
10, hours after President Buhari met with service chiefs and ordered them to
strengthen their operations.
“Imagine when the President came back and
addressed the nation, not up to 30 minutes later, a fake speech of the
Commander-In-Chief was being circulated in order to do what? To derail the
people. If you are not very sharp and if you didn’t listen to the speech or you
don’t have a copy of it like I had it almost immediately, you wouldn’t know. So,
looking at it from that perspective, it is a challenge
everywhere.”
Having observed the possibility that the social media can be
misused the military has taken steps to address that. One of such steps is the
establishment of strategic media centres.
“What are we doing? In the
military, we are now taking on it more seriously than ever. We have our
strategic media centres that monitor the social media to be able to sieve out
and react to all the ones that will be anti-government, be anti-military, (and)
be anti-security,” the military chief continued.
“We tackle them
appropriately with appropriate responses. Ahead of that, we are also proactive.
We have measures in place, scientific measures to be able to sieve this
information and also to get the public and let them know that some of this
information they are getting is not genuine are not true and their objective is
an anti-corporate existence of this country.”
There has been a rise in
attacks by Boko Haram terrorists and it is one of the things the President
advised the service chiefs to check. While the military intends to do just that,
Major General Enenche said what they terrorists are doing is not
surprising.
He said, “Like I have said before, it is not unexpected being
that they have been degraded, decimated and really busted at camp zero and other
cities there through the air bombardment and raids by members of the military,
particularly the army. So you will see them spreading out like ants that have
been busted from an anthill.”
According to him, the terrorists have
benefitted in their attacks from the unending collaboration by insiders and
sympathisers among the residents in the North East.
“However, I want to
assure the general public and Nigerians that measures are in place to begin to
take on them and begin to take them out. However highly placed anyone is or any
insider or collaborator is, we are on top of the situation and we are beginning
to get our information to begin to handle them appropriately,” he said.
